Rate & Share:

Related Links:

Info:

TV Wasteland: Christmas Blues

It’s a brand new week, as Christmas movies take center stage and a certain cable station with whom we have a perennial love-hate relationship turns 20. Let’s take a look.

Monday

Syfy 20th Anniversary Special (Syfy, 9:00 PM EDT)

The once and former Sci-Fi Channel celebrates two decades of name changes, crappy CGI and baffling programming choices. Oh all right, they also produced Farscape, Stargate SG-1, BSG, Warehouse 13 and tons of other great shows (the cast and crew of whom come back to reminisce).

Miracle on 34th Street (AMC, 8:00 PM EDT and 10:15 PM EDT)

If you need something to get you in the holiday spirit, AMC offers a true classic about a department-store Santa (Edmund Gwenn) who may actually be the real thing. It repeats on Tuesday and Thursday at the same times.

The Adjustment Bureau (Cinemax, 6:35 PM EDT)

This glorified Twilight Zone episode – about an up-and-coming politician (Matt Damon) separated from the woman of his dreams by a group of weird guys in hats – shouldn’t work half as well as it does. Go figure.

Hop (Cinemax, 8:20 PM EDT)

Because nothing says “Christmas” more than a shitty Easter movie.

Jumper (FMC , 8:00 PM EDT and 10:00 PM EDT)

This little turkey had “basic cable staple” written all over it from the get-go.

In Time (HBO, 7:00 PM EDT)

How did Justin Timberlake become so legitimately cool?

WarGames (Sundance, 7:00 PM EDT)

Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy take us back to the glorious days of the 1980s, when you could start World War III with a TRS-80.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Syfy, 6:00 PM EDT)

Harrison Ford dusts off the fedora for a fourth time, as Indy thwarts Communist agents in the paranoia-laden 1950s.

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (Starz, 6:35 PM EDT)

Who knew a theme park ride could make such a terrific movie?

Die Hard (HBO, 10:00 PM EDT)

Now this is a Christmas move.

Tuesday

Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town (ABC, 8:00 PM EDT)

Another of Rankin-Bass’s classic stop-motion Christmas specials uncovers the history of Santa Claus, as he and his elfin buddies deliver toys over the objections of cranky grown-up Burgermeister Meisterburger.

Muppets Christmas: Letters to Santa (The CW, 9:00 PM EDT)

Kermit and the gang accidentally divert three letters destined for the North Pole, then try to correct them mistake in their usual chaos-laden manner.

COMMENTS AND RESPONSES

I would like to recommend a book to anyone that is into TV. It's called "The Revolution Was Televised" by Alan Sepinwall who writes for Hitfix.

The book has a chapter for The Sopranos, The Wire, Oz, Deadwood, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Battlestar Galactica, 24, The Shield, Lost, Mad Men and Breaking Bad. I may be leaving out a few more. Basically it talks about how these TV shows were changing the game. Good stuff.

Uh-oh it sounds like Rob saw The Hobbit and didn't like it. My anticipation for this wasn't as great as LOTR and some of the reviews really tempered it even more. I think that's a good thing, at least for me

Yeah, Hitfix is cool and I like reading Sepinwall's TV recaps. Checkout the book if you get a chance, its a collection of essays. Not that expensive if you got a kindle or a kindle app. I think I paid $7 or $8 and the print version was like $10 more. I'm not a big reader but I thought it was entertaining and learned a few fun facts. Like for example, if they had done a 6th season of the Wire it would've involved Latinos, and the role of McNulty got turned down by John C. Reily.

I watched the Syfy special last night and enjoyed it very much. I've watched every program that they covered. I think there was one program that they mentioned in passing which I wasn't familliar with.